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Monday, December 27, 2010

Devanagari script is used to write Bhojpuri, Hindi, Maithili, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit and many other languages and dialects of northern and central Indian states such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Jharkhand.

The Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh (Photo by: Aditya)

Devanagari script is syllabary which means that it is a set of syllables (ka, kha, ga, gha). Equivalent of English letter “k”, in Hindi syllabary would be “क” (ka). Whenever a Hindi consonant is written alone, it is pronounced as ka, kha, ga, gha. When a Hindi consonant is written along with the other consonant, it conjugates itself, combining a new character. These characters are called conjunct characters or conjuncts. Some need to be learnt by heart but majority can be recognized easily.

Hindi vowels have two forms: independent and dependant. Independent vowels are used when written independently or when two or more vowels go after each other in a word. For example, “aeeye” – “come in” (singular and plural polite form) would be written as अ+ ई+ य+ ए= अईये

“a” and “ee” are both written in their original forms, however “ya” is a consonant that is followed by a vowel “e”, so “e” is written in its dependent form.

Sometimes you can see characters with dots. For example क़ (qa),ख़ (kha),ग़ (Ga),घ़ (Gha),ज़(Za),ड़ (Da),ढ़ (Dha),फ़ (fa). The dot just makes the sound deeper and more accentuated. I’ve noticed that these dotted characters appear mostly in Urdu words (not Sanskrit).

The other signs that appear in Devanagari include this little line below the consonantक् which means that “ka” is no longer “ka”, it becomes “k”.

Chandrabindu is written above the vowel to give it a nasal sound, like in हाँ (haan, meaning “yes”). While transliterating chandrabindu (writing it in English), we use letter “n” after the vowel we nasalize. In the phrase आपहैं(aap hain “you are”), chandrabindu is also used, but because of lack of space, the half moon is not added, only the dot.

It is common in Hindi to exchange consonants म्(“m”) and न् (“n”) into a dot, located above like inमंदिर (mandir “temple”). It can be written as मन्दिर too, though.